Artaire - Heather King

Heather and Karen have been friends for 17 years and have often discussed working together in an artistic  enterprise. Both were considering the feasibility of building studio workshops in their respective back yard.

Heather has done a number of commissions over the last few years and decided early October 2007 it was time to move out of the kitchen and find somewhere to get serious.

Heather investigated  the wonderful artist community at Abbotsford Convent but reluctantly realised because of the distance from home this was not the solution for her.

She started thinking and thought maybe there might be an empty shop in one of the little shopping strips, dotted around the Melbourne suburbs, which might be reasonable enough to consider. She scoured the internet. It turned out such places where at a premium.

Then she turned her attention to factory space, now, that looked more promising

After much searching she found 3 or 4 possible locations within striking distance of home. 

The next day she was meeting Karen Foley at Cafe 57  (They do good coffee there) She told Karen she was seriously considering  renting a factory and then offering space to other like minded artists who needed studio space to cut the cost . Karen Immediately said if Heather was going to do that Karen would definitely be in on it.  They  shook hands on it. That  night,  Karen searched the internet and found  some of the same  places Heather had found. The next day they compared notes and decided to investigate a few of the properties further, and drove around to look at some of them. 

A factoryette in South Oakleigh looked the most promising

Heather then phoned the agent, just  to see if they could take it to  the next step. They made an appointment to view. They viewed. They liked. they went away to think. They had to wait three months before the space became available but they decided on a name for  the space then and there.  Artspace7.

The space would not be available until January 2008. This meant they had time to consult their families and do the sums.

There was much soul searching and grilling and support from their families, but in the end, decided to go for it boots and all. T

On January 17th 2008, Artaire (Heather) teamed up with K Design (Karen) and moved to the  new premises in Oakleigh South.

 In May 2008  they held their first professional Exhibition. Shapes, Scapes and Traits.  Transparencies and Botanicals   held in November 2008 was their second.